


I wonder how it is I miss these things

by TheTartWitch



Series: Tobirama/Madara [2]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Izuna and Hashirama are little shits, M/M, Reincarnation-ish, blink and you miss the slash, it's graphic as in 'punch', the violence is practically canon, they get two seconds of screentime
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-29
Updated: 2016-09-29
Packaged: 2018-08-18 09:22:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,810
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8157160
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheTartWitch/pseuds/TheTartWitch
Summary: Tobirama and Madara fight different battles (Naruto, Sasuke). Side characters cheer them on, unseen, from the sidelines.Title from A Stranger by Lang Leav.





	

**Author's Note:**

> blackkat, your comment was so nice on my first Tobirama/Madara fic and I felt like posting another one after reading it, so thank you very, very much for your lovely thoughts! :)
> 
> If this confusing at all, please ask questions. This is pretty stream-of-thought and I don't have a beta, so yeah. Characters might be a little OOC (mainly because I've never written them before in depth (except for Tobirama who is difficult on principle, so) ^^;), but if anything glares out at you that needs correction please let me know; as a writer I strive for perfection! *makes fist and stares off into middle distance dreaming*

He’s there when the boy is born to Madara’s family, all sharp black hair and eyes like obsidian in sunlight. He lets the baby coo over his fingers and he whispers lovely, adoring things that he would have never said when they were both alive, he and Madara.  

He barely gets five months with the boy before he’s sucked into something else; a battle, a seal, a baby.  

A jinchuuriki.  

\--

Madara wakes from a sleep like death in the back of someone else’s head. He finds himself cradling a baby when he sits up, covered in drool and baby toys. He realizes what’s happened immediately: he’s been sealed. He’s seen cases like this before, back during the war, before the peace.  

He watches, shocked, as Tobirama ( _he’s dead; I don’t understand_ ) materializes in front of the boy and smiles small, delicately. “Hello darling,” Tobirama whispers softly, and the baby shrills in delight. Madara doesn’t move, too afraid of being seen and driving this _adorable_ behavior away. Tobirama lets the baby hold his fingers in death-grips and warble as he talks about anything, everything.  

 _There’s a fight outside tonight, little Sasuke,_ he said on the last night, _but I'll keep you safe, for now._ He’d smirked at the infant, apparently not seeing Madara seethe under the surface ( _as if_ I’d _be the one who needs protection, jerk_ ) waved a little bit with one hand (prompting an identical response from Sasuke, who was just beginning to work on hand-eye coordination), and vanished mid-step away.  

He didn’t come back.  

( _Madara wasn’t disappointed, shut up._ )

\--

Inside of Naruto is humid and caging. The sewer walls drip, making his nose wrinkle despite the lack of scents here. Across from him, tidied away in a cell seemingly built into the wall with bars across the front wall as he is, is a hollow in the wall, also barred. It’s shadowy, full of eyes that wheel in the space like moons around an invisible planet and great tails that strike against the bars from nowhere. Despite Tobirama’s sensory abilities he can sense nothing, but he knows it’s merely a matter of waiting. He has an idea of who his jail-mate is, anyway, and he’s been unable to leave so far, no matter what he's tried.  

( _he wonders if Sasuke misses him_ )

He’s got time to wait, no pressing appointments on the outside.  

( _a baby is screaming for him; the child he never had_ )

He’s got time.

\--

When Sasuke is seven, he doesn’t think to watch Itachi for the signs of exhaustion or solemn cruelty the way he should, the way he will when he’s older.  

But Madara does. He directs Sasuke to the river, whispering in his ear from the pocket in the back of Sasuke's head that's evolved as the boy grows, shows him how to pull Shisui from the ledge and sit with him, be near him. He pushes the boy to notice the shadows under and inside Itachi’s eyes, how he stares at their mother as if trying to memorize her without the Sharingan, his casual disdain for their father as Sasuke is _the best and the best and the best_ but never _enough_ for Fugaku, and watches as Sasuke sits through an entire dinner, casually scrutinizing his elder brother’s every move without the ANBU-level nin even noticing. He’s proud of the way the boy is waiting for Itachi the night of the could-be disaster, unsuspecting of such immediate action but willing to reason with his brother.

“Sasuke,” Itachi breathes at the first sight of him, and without Madara’s hearing it would be too quiet to be audible. _Pre-empt him,_ he warns Sasuke, _or you’ll miss your only chance._

“Brother,” Sasuke says calmly, sitting in their mother’s favorite chair, green with roiling crimson-and-gold dragons, “did you notice that how you’ve been acting lately is really obvious to anyone watching for it?”

Madara grins teeth in the boy’s hindbrain, unconsciously letting it filter through. Itachi doesn’t step back, but it’s probably a near thing.

The great thing about it is after that, Itachi is always watching his brother, wondering how he knew, how he saw, but he never sees Madara.

\--

Naruto is a lonely boy, stuck in a cycle of _shouting-anger-resentment-fear-hatred_ that he doesn’t know how to escape. _Think_ , Tobirama suggests, _invent something new, something they’ll need. Useful things are rarely thrown away._ He knows, somewhere, that this probably isn’t the best advice for a boy with a demon sealed into the back of his head, but that’s not the only thing sealed there, so perhaps the boy’s got a chance to fight past that.

And thus begins the war of pranks, of chases in the streets after dark and through busy marketplaces and into the clutches of ANBU (though he’s almost immediately free of them). When he begins at the shinobi academy, he’s got years of escaping high-level ninja already under his belt and the fighting instincts of a wild animal and a hokage slotted into his limbs, furious and cold all at once.

Now he just has to learn how to use it.

\--

In Sasuke’s first practice match at the academy, he trounces the other youngsters in his class, including the other Uchiha from his clan. They’re no challenge, and he wheedles his way into advanced taijutsu classes with upperclassmen so he doesn’t get rusty. Madara cackles in the back of his head as he mentally corrects Sasuke’s stances, adds more force to that punch, and slowly injects the muscle memory into the boy so deep it’s encoded on his bones.

He watches the boy’s surroundings like he’d once watched his own and once, a girl fallen to Sasuke’s attack tried to ambush him after her own false surrender. Before the instructor could step in, Sasuke had turned into her punch to his side, slid around her body to her back, and reminded her what losing felt like: dirt in your mouth, blood in your wounds, and fear in your eyes.

She didn’t try it again, which was disappointing. Sasuke had been hoping to practice one of the fire jutsus he’d learned recently on a live target.

\--

Naruto is awful at taijutsu, which is understandable. As he grows, the fox across from Tobirama shifts more, rolls over and mumbles in his sleep, and generally distracts Naruto from the everyday life around him. Tobirama helps as best he can, jerking Naruto’s attention back forcefully or simply covering the fox’s memories with his own, injecting them into Naruto’s head like the treatment of a virus.

The first time he tries to fight another with taijutsu, Tobirama attempts to gently guide his limbs through the steps of a kata, a defense, an offense, but the fox is flopping wildly and giggling in his sleep ( _which is actually rather disturbing, Tobirama concludes_ ) and Naruto fumbles.

At the edge of the training circle’s borders is Sasuke, grown and muscled and staring off into the middle distance like it’s beneath him, and Tobirama growls lightly under his breath, remembering another Uchiha who’d been just the same. Naruto glances that way too, wonderingly, but soon after that class Sasuke is transferred out and up and they don’t get to see him anymore.

Tobirama determines that Naruto will need outside training, away from the practice matches, so he helps the boy pick a clearing of the training grounds that isn’t immediately in the open, and begins practice.

He teaches the boy how to block, and settle, and weave through opponents. He projects images in the boy’s head, of men and women rushing him, trying to get close enough for a death blow, and suddenly the practice is meaningful. He learns the correct way to position his fingers while punching on the grocer who lets his apprentices throw the rotten vegetables and fruit from their shop after hours, and builds endurance by running through the trees from see-through ANBU, and when he’s done all that, Tobirama gently lets the fox feed instincts into the boy’s imaginary enemies, showing him how to track and smell fear, how to sense chakra, how to walk without making any sound. Together they introduce him to killing intent, until by the end of his time at the academy he is pretending to be dull and slow to lead the others away from the truth.

At taijutsu practice, Tobirama pushes Naruto to find the weak points on a target’s body, the areas their attacks leave open, where their punches lack push or weight and their punches bite. In class, he weaves Naruto’s chakra with him, making him regulate the flow, even it to acceptable levels while storing the rest in reservoirs for later. When he can do that without stumbling, Tobirama begins teaching him the history of the shinobi and the civilians, the science behind his smoke-bombs and traps, why some jutsus mix while others don’t; all while engaging him with regulating his chakra instinctively.

He does all of this while being a voice in the back of Naruto’s thoughts, like the sightline of a rifle, but on the day of the graduating test, Naruto surprises him by asking, quietly in his seat by the window, who he was really.

 _Good evening, Naruto_ , he greets solemnly, smiling faintly at the way the bars of his cage warp and twist as Naruto tries to see him clearer. _It’s nice to finally meet you face to face, so to speak. My name is Senju Tobirama._

\--

Madara watches out of the back of Sasuke’s eyes as the Uzumaki boy does his katas for Kakashi, who can’t figure out why they’re different from the academy’s standard-taught jutsu, but Madara knows.

Madara sees, just over Uzumaki’s shoulders, a man with silver hair and a simple fastened robe demonstrating them for the boy, leading him in a dance across the grounds that baffles Kakashi.

“Where did you learn that?” The man asks lazily, but Sasuke can see the demand in that one visible eye. Naruto shrugs, looking refreshed and settled, and grins. Over his shoulder, Tobirama looks on proudly, eyes glinting with experience. Madara pulls up short, opening what he sees to Sasuke, who sucks in a breath with an audible whistle. Kakashi doesn’t glance back, but both Naruto and Tobirama tilt their heads and turn to stare as Madara feels himself rise out of Sasuke’s body to crouch at his back. He grins wolfishly at Tobirama, who flushes with a slight scowl.

“I had a great teacher,” Naruto says, eyes darting to Madara and then back to Kakashi even as his legs shift into a stance Madara recognizes.

Sasuke laughs like a jackal, and Sakura watches on with a faint, unrecognizable smirk.

In the back of her head, Izuna and Hashirama crow _did you see that, we did it_ and she snickers with them at the thought of the future drama to come.

**Author's Note:**

> Poem link:  
> http://www.goodreads.com/quotes/953301-a-stranger-there-is-a-love-i-reminisce-like-a


End file.
